


Cassandra

by Cherrytreegirl



Series: Of loving and being loved [1]
Category: Das Boot (TV 2018)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Klaus Hoffmann loves Cassandra Lloyd, Light Angst, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Slight Canon Divergence, WWII, could be canon compliant tho, im still bad at tagging, introspective, self-concious character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:35:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28692591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherrytreegirl/pseuds/Cherrytreegirl
Summary: Klaus Hoffmann has a choice to make, it's not an easy choice, but sometimes a bullet to the stomach can help you focus on what's actually important.
Relationships: Cassandra Lloyd/Klaus Hoffmann
Series: Of loving and being loved [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120367
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	Cassandra

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I'd like to say, the thoughts expressed in this story are in no way representative of the authors ideas and ideologies (except for the fact that Mein Kampf is actually painful to read because, while that lunatic may have liked art, the art of writing did not like him, we read parts of it in history class), the Nazis were absolutely horrible and I am most glad they lost the war.  
> On a cheerier note, I'd like to thank the anonymous person on tumblr who requested I write about these two. Like a few other users I, too, think that their relationship seemed a little rushed, I found it interesting but I probably wouldn't have had the idea to write about Cassandra and Klaus. I did however, have fun writing this, so I might actually write about them again in the future.  
> I'll be singing off now, thanks for reading!

Why Cassandra had taken a liking to him, of all people, he had not the slightest idea. He was a German for gods sake! The enemy, the people that hated Jews and called her singing “Negermusik”. To be fair, when they met Sam had introduced him as a Swissman, but Hoffmann was sure an intelligent woman like Cassandra would be able to look right through a lie like that, he was sure that his actual heritage was obvious enough. It appeared he was wrong.

Apart from that though, he didn’t have much to offer either, he didn’t look the part due to Sam’s care, but he was technically as good as penniless here in America. He had some fortune, yes, his father was a war hero and successful man after all, but he had no way of getting to it, his crew and the whole of Germany probably thought him dead and he could hardly call home to ask for an allowance. 

Must have been his good looks then, he scoffed at his reflection in the mirror before him. Hoffman barely recognized his own face, complexion pale and sickly, eyes glossy and filled with pain, his usually so carefully combed hair was completely out of order with single strands sticking to his sweaty forehead. There was no denying, he looked terrible.

The profusely bleeding gunshot wound in his abdomen was obviously to blame for the disheveled appearance, but even when he wasn’t as close to death as he currently was, he wouldn’t have described himself as particularly attractive. Men like Tennstedt, with broad shoulders and strong arms were successful with ladies, men with tough faces and prominent features, who looked like they’d fought a hundred fights and won each and every last one, from battlefields to bar brawls. He wasn’t anything like those men. 

Once, when he’d been a child of about 14, he had overheard his father saying that Klaus looked “delicate”, like a “pansy”, his mother had defended him, saying he was still young, boys always looked softer before they were done with puberty, and that he’d grow into a proper looking young man if he put on a bit of muscle. And so, he continued to grow and mature. Soon Klaus turned eighteen, he stood a proud 1,82 m and his shoulders had gotten broader, but his face was still delicate and his skin still resembled the complexion of his grandmother’s porcelain dolls.

In his last year of school he’d gone out with a girl a few times. She had been very nice, was decently pretty and although she seemed a bit crude at times, not at all girly and feminine, he had liked her at least a bit. On their last date she told him how she loved his eyes, as they were so soft and always had that hint of sadness and how they reminded her of her best friend’s sister.

He didn’t ask her out again after that, much to the dismay of her and his mother, they had already started to plan the wedding. Not much later he saw her kissing exactly that girl he had reminded her off in a dark corner somewhere on the school grounds, it goes without saying that that didn’t exactly boost his feeling of masculinity. She had liked him and not the other boys because he looked feminine, like a girl.

Hoffmann’s languishing in unpleasant memories was interrupted by a sharp pain flaring through his side, reminding him that he was still in the present, that he was alive, and that he had a choice to make.

He had to choose between a return home, a return to fighting and winning a war for his fatherland, a return to an ideology that he had sworn to protect and to fight for so the world could be cleansed and there could be more Lebensraum for the Aryan race; and the option to stay here denying all he was taught from a young age, deserting his country, all to be with Cassandra.

He had to be sure, there was no option of compromise, choosing one would forever block the path to the other. Was it worth it?

Hoffmann let out a muffled grunt as another wave of pain went through his abdomen. Fresh bandaging would be necessary soon enough with the amounts of blood oozing from the hole in his stomach. He probably should have gone to a hospital, still should, to get it professionally treated, but in a way the pain grounded him, helped him to concentrate on what was actually important and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking he had to endure this in all it’s bothersome and agonizing glory as a punishment for what he had done.  
What he didn’t know though, was, if it was punishment for betraying his fatherland, for even thinking about staying here, which was basically deserting, and for helping Greenwood, or if it was punishment for what he’d done to Greenwood. 

His- his friend. There wasn’t really any other way to describe their relationship, they had become friends.

And not only had he taken Cassandra from his friend, he was also responsible for his death, he hadn’t shot him himself but he still felt responsible for Sam’s dying.  
Hoffmann was conflicted, he didn’t know his own mind anymore, who he was, how he saw the world. The moment he got to know Cassandra Lloyd, actually know her, how she laughed and danced and spoke and thought in all her beauty, he started questioning his upbringing. She was in no way dirty, stupid, impure, inferior, she was a strong woman, a clever woman, she knew what she wanted and she took it, grabbed it by the tie and held it close. And when he touched her warm chocolaty skin for the first time, held her in his arms, he pushed that annoying little voice into a small corner in his mind and locked the door, never to be opened again, because it didn’t just feel good, it felt right.

The voice was still there though, still screaming at him that this was disgusting, a disgrace, and he knew that it wouldn’t shut up any time soon, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, it was deeply rooted within his mind. Funny thing, how much one can shape a child’s mind if one wants.

The easiest thing, obviously would have been to give into it, to turn his back on America and Cassandra, to never speak of it again and return home a hero, who, abandoned by his crew, had to fight his way back, fuelled by Siegeswillen. Take that, Tennstedt.  
It was the easiest thing in theory, Klaus wasn’t sure though, if he’d make it to the U-boot, if he’d make it home with a gaping hole in his skin. And he wasn’t sure if it really was the easiest thing, if he was able to forget Cassandra so easily. If you asked the Führer, he would tell you it was the only right thing to do. But no one was asking the Führer, this was about Hoffmann, and he wasn’t sure he would agree with his Führer anymore. He wasn’t sure it was what he wanted. 

In Germany there was glory awaiting him, but there were also expectations waiting for him. In Germany he always had, and always would be his father’s son, never just Klaus Hoffmann, always “Hoffmann’s Sohn”, the great, glorious man and his offspring. But here, in the “Land of the free” he was just that, free. Free from expectations, from responsibility, from his father’s shadow always looming over him. Here he was just Klaus, nobody, nobody’s son, no soon to be war hero, a man from nowhere special. 

Here he was the man Cassandra wanted.

And although the idea of staying here, being himself instead of who people wanted him to be, sounded so sweet, it didn’t make his decision much easier. Hoffmann half hoped to bleed out, just so he could avoid giving the decision another damned thought.  
But after having, half-hazardly at best, dressed his wound, his thoughts, as if having a mind of their own, inevitably wandered back to the black woman he had taken such a fancy to. Fancy maybe wasn’t the right word. Schoolboys fancy the sweet Mathilde from church, who lives across the street, and they pull on her blond braids to get her attention. Hoffmann was a grown man, mature and well spoken, he didn’t fancy.

He loved.

Yes, he loved Cassandra.

It was ironic in a way. His father spent time of his life worrying his good, German son would turn out to be one of those “dreadful homosexuals” due to the lack of women in his life, and now that Klaus had a beautiful lady by his side, he knew that in world he could ever introduce them. His great father would probably shoot Klaus and then himself, out of pure shame. No, he wouldn’t shoot Klaus, he’d have him executed by a random member of the GeStaPo, probably not even that, an ordinary thug from the streets would do well enough for his shameful, deviant son.

Perhaps it was that thought, which finally pushed Hoffmann into a definite direction, maybe it was then that he understood that, no matter what he did, it would never be enough, maybe it was the realization that he did love Cassandra, but he most importantly, understood that he couldn’t return “home”, he couldn’t fight alongside his comrades for Führer and Vaterland anymore, the way he had. He couldn’t swear on Hitler and his Nazi ideology any longer, the book was dreadful by the way, even harder understand than his father’s book.  
He was a different man now, he had never fit in with the other men in his class, in his school, in his Boot because of the way he looked, to soft, to feminine, they had abandoned him in the middle of the ocean for God’s sake, and now he didn’t even share their worldviews anymore, his mind was no longer in the “right” place.

But perhaps this view had never been anchored as well in his mind, anyway. It had only taken the touch of one black woman to change him, to make him abandon years of lecturing and teaching, he was surprised himself, to say the least.

No, that wasn’t right, it hadn’t been the touch of any black woman. 

It had been Cassandra.


End file.
